Codependency
by Pockets Full of Sunshine
Summary: Dean is an idiot and Sam is crazy. Or, Dean finds out that certain things haven't changed. Tag to "Southern Comfort." Wincest.


I like reading the stories where Sam lied to Dean about not hunting or looking for him and had a reason, so I've decided to write my own. : )

Warnings: mental illness, mentions of past (season seven and pre-series) mental illness, implied self-harm, general angsty fluff. Also wincest.

Takes place after "Southern Comfort."

Disclaimer: _Supernatural _belongs to many people and I'm not one of them.

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"Codependency"

As blinded as he was by own anger, it took Dean almost a full day to realize the way his brother was acting was nothing new.

Or, maybe that wasn't exactly true. He noticed immediately that during the curse induced rant, Sam was pressing down onto his scar and now about eighteen hours later he hadn't stopped. It must be a reassurance kind of thing, he told himself, and for a while he was pissed off enough to believe it. Then there was the twitching and how he flinched away Dean tried to touch him and his eyes darted around. His conviction was worn down steadily throughout the day, and up until his brother's hands flew to his ears in a moment of complete silence, he was desperately clinging to the hope that Sam was just nervous and guilty because _anything _was better than what he suspected was going on.

Sam's breathing was heavy as Dean pulled the Impala off to the side of road and after a moment, he opened his eyes and slowly removed his hands, shaking. He glanced first at Dean, then his surroundings, and said, "Well, fuck."

Maybe it was the remnants of the cursed coin or just worry (because he always worried about Sam no matter what the current status of their relationship was), but he was still irritated. "Are you going to tell me what that was about right now," he asked, "or are we going to be stuck here until you decide that lying to me never helps anyone?"

It took him a moment to realize Sam didn't answer right away because he was concentrating on his breathing the way Dean taught him to when they were kids and he fervently hoped this was just one of his old anxiety attacks. "You -" he started, then stopped, pausing again. As kids and even a year ago, Dean would hold him to sync their breathing if his brother couldn't do that on his own, but considering his earlier reaction that didn't seem like the greatest idea. Eventually Sam continued, "I got officially diagnosed with PTSD. I take Zyprexa and fluoxetine. Every night."

Silence fell while Dean tried to wrap his mind around this. Last he checked, Cas had taken away the insanity. But, then again, in Purgatory he'd been all right in the head. God, he thought, please don't let it have reversed itself. "I - How?" he said, brain still attempting to short circuit itself because this was just about the last thing they needed. "You - Cas - I thought -"

Sam's fingers dug into the scar again and he resisted the urge to just grab his hands and keep them still. "Apparently," he answered, "you were what kept me grounded. Within the first month you were gone, the flashbacks came back. The hallucinations haven't."

"Zyprexa is a hardcore anti-psychotic. Were you institutionalized again?"

He shook his head, still avoiding looking at Dean, which was practically a metaphorical slap in the face. "I hunted for the first two months," his brother said, voice dull. "Then I had a flashback while driving, hit a dog, and snapped out it. I got nervous and when Amelia asked, I accidently said that. She convinced me to see a psychiatrist."

"What did you tell him that kept you out of the hospital?" he asked because last he checked, psychiatrists weren't big on believing in the supernatural.

"I looked through Bobby's old records, found a psychiatrist who used to be a hunter." Another pause. Dean's fingers twitched against his knee. He knew Sam better than his brother knew himself and he'd _missed _this. How the Hell did he not notice him taking medication every night? "He'd heard of us. Everyone has since, you know, I started the apocalypse and all. After he managed to get the story out of me, he said that you and I are codependent and seeing you disappear triggered the psychosis again, just milder. Gave me the meds and said I had to stop hunting for at least a year to see how I could cope and then ease my way back into it if I wanted. Left out the part about my hand though because I didn't want to be labelled a self-injurer."

_Easing _Sam back into it wasn't exactly what they'd been doing. Ever since he'd gotten back, it was pretty much nonstop. He wanted to be angry at his brother for lying, but it wasn't that simply. Even he realized he hadn't really given him a chance. "Did me yelling at you act as a trigger?" he asked, suddenly exhausted. Sam nodded. "Are you fully...here right now?" Another nod. "Goddammit."

"Sorry, Dean." His brother's voice was small, the way it would get when he was still in school and he'd have an anxiety attack from a fight with Dad or some sonofabitch bullying him for being short or a geek.

"Don't," he said, not wanting to hear it. It was bad enough getting labelled as codependent for the second time without Sam proving it. He knew their relationship wasn't exactly conventional and hadn't been even before he turned twenty, but he liked to at least pretend it wasn't poisonous. Bobby used that word once when he thought they couldn't hear. He never knew exactly what was going on, but he was smart and suspected. "How'd you do before I showed up?"

Sam worried his bottom lip. "Not as well as Dr. McKinley hoped," he answered, "but it was enough. Amelia's husband had just died and she was depressed and I'd never tell her I knew this, but I think she was hoping she could 'fix' me, which she kind of did. Being with her kept me -" He stumbled over his own words, and that was never a good sigh. "- kept me off suicide watch."

"_Suicide watch?_"

He flinched. "I thought you were _dead_," he said. "I had no way of knowing you were in Purgatory and there was no way you'd be in Hell, so I thought you were in Heaven. I tried looking for you, but I had no idea where you even were and if you _were _in Heaven, the why would you ever want to leave to be back here?"

Him. In Heaven. Yeah, he hadn't thought of that one and it was pretty damn obvious, he realized. "I'm back now and that's what matters," he said, grabbing his brother's shoulders and trying to squash down the instant feelings of self-hatred because right now it was Sam he needed to focus on. The pitying he could save for later. "We'll get through this. We always do. If you need a break, just tell me and don't dare even think about getting yourself off those meds without a doctor's opinion, you hear?"

Finally, that got Sam to look at him. He had that damn kicked puppy look that was and always would be Dean's weakness. "Okay," said his brother. "I don't think I will though. I've been stable recently. Today was just...well, Lucifer pulled the you hating me card enough times that you shouting at me like that was a pretty common flashback. For the first time in months I actually couldn't figure out what was real."

I'm the worst big brother ever, he thought. He was such an idiot for not seeing it earlier when all signs pointed straight at this. "I'm sorry, Sammy," he said and before Sam could protest, he continued, "We're going to head back to Rufus' cabin and chill for a while, okay? Focus on finding Kevin instead of ganking monsters, figure out a way for you to snap out flashbacks without hurting yourself. And if these escalate to hallucinations, you're telling me _immediately_. None of that 'you have enough going on already' bullshit, got it?"

"You don't -"

"Look, it would make me feel better, Sammy. Got it?"

It was a low card to pull but Sam nodded, giving in because codependency and all that. Dean made an illegal U-turn on the deserted road, heading back to the closest thing they had to a safe house. He wasn't lying.

Sam might say he was better, but Dean needed some time to believe that, too.

.

The kiss didn't come as much of a surprise as it should've. It happened without warning in the middle of Dean trying to pry out of Sam how they'd get refills when his brother just leaned over and pressed his mouth to his. He thought that if this did happen again, it would be different but apparently he was wrong; it was still made up of chapped lips and hair tickling the side of his face. Without thinking, he kissed back, deciding to just run with it. Maybe he missed this more than he wanted to admit.

Sam's cheeks were flushed when he pulled away before it could get to heated. Dean blinked, confused. "Sorry," his brother said, voice coming out as a mumble. "I've been wanting to do that since you got back, but you were mad at me."

Their rather _unique _relationship had hit a few speed bumps since it first started fourteen years ago. First Stanford and Jess dying, then Ruby, then Sammy without a soul, and finally this disaster. Suddenly he felt like an idiot because this wasn't like the soulless and Lisa issue and hardened by Purgatory or not, they were still Sam'n'Dean. If he'd just gone and tried, this could've been been averted. "Yeah," he said when words came back to him. "Uh, sorry about that." And because he was never one to openly shoulder all of the blame, he added, "Though you still should've told me."

"I know." His brother suddenly became very interested in the floor. "I'm going to - to get that refill, I guess."

He went to go head out the door and Dean saw that this was probably his last chance to salvage anything, so even though he hated chick flick moments, he grabbed by the hand and pulled him close, ignoring the squeak of indignation. It was a hug, not a kiss, and Sam buried his face in the crook of his neck. Normally he wouldn't be this affectionate, a characteristic that had only gotten worse, but fuck, he just found out his baby brother who'd been doing _so well _for the few months before they were separated again had regressed to the point even he knew he had to see a psychiatrist. That, and the added fact that Dean had been a catalyst to a flashback roughly forty-eight hours earlier and if he hadn't, it might've taken him even longer to figure out.

So, yeah. Moment allowed.

Face still hidden in his neck, Sam said, "I'm sorry for lying," and it came out muffled. "And for, you know, not being strong enough to keep from falling to pieces the moment you were gone. Or looking for you harder. And -"

"I get the point, Sam," he cut in, not wanting to hear this again. Almost instinctively, he started running his fingers through his brother's hair and Sam made this little noise in the back of his throat that he hadn't even thought about since he got back. Really, no one makes you feel worse than family. "Look, it's good you're working on getting your head fixed up. If it starts getting worse, you'll tell me, right? Swear?"

"I promise." He wasn't sure how much he believed that, but let it slide. He knew the signs by now anyway.

When he went to pull away, Dean kissed him again, suddenly needing to know he was _there _and this was _real_, that he hadn't snapped like Sam had and was actually still in Purgatory, a thought that had never crossed his mind. Then Sam was pressing back and one thing led to another and next thing Dean knew, they were lying next to each other in bed, clothes strewn throughout the cabin and the room smelling like sex. Some of that pent up frustration was finally gone; turned out that this was what he needed, that sense of their own fucked up normality that had been gone for a year.

.

Everything was going all right and dandy up until Spencer got inside their heads and if he wasn't already dead, Dean would hunt him down and kill him all over again.

This time it wasn't so uncomfortable, so he had Sammy pulled up in his arms, trying to pull off that synced breathing. To his relief, it still worked and after a while, his brother calmed down. That wasn't really enough though since their luck sucked. For now they were still in the hotel room, as he refused to leave until he was sure neither of them was going to have a panic attack in the Impala. But all he really wanted was to be back in the bunker because he was pretty sure that would make dealing with this about a thousand times easier, especially considering he was still pretty messed up himself. Hell, Purgatory, and Mom all wrapped up in a neat little package. He didn't even want to know what Sam saw because whatever it was, it was guaranteed to be bad. As in, Lucifer level bad.

Once he was sure Sam was breathing normally enough, he separated, holding his brother at arm's length. Blue eyes were darting around the room and to his utter disappointment, it seemed like the scar was back in use. "Hey," he said and snapped his fingers in Sam's face. "I'm right here."

His eyes focused again, hands dropped. Dean hadn't been this relieved in a long time. "I'm fine," he answered, which was a lie and they both knew it. "Right here. In a motel room. With you."

"And?"

"It's just the two of us. I'm not hallucinating."

For now he believed it, though he hoped it wasn't simply wishful thinking. "You want to try to sleep?" he asked, but Sam was shaking his head before he finished. Nightmares, of course. Dean wasn't so keen on crashing either at the moment. "Want to leave?"

"Yes."

They really shouldn't be heading out this soon. Neither are exactly in the condition to drive, but this place was officially bothering him in the bad touch sort of way he felt with that bizarre-o TV show world back _before _Sammy was nuts. It didn't help that he hated dogs and was stuck in a room with one bed neither bothered with covered in hair. Lately they'd been crashing in bed together again, but this hotel had only one vacancy, which was two queens, thank god. He stood and Sam followed, gathering their stuff to make the escape quicker. His brother's eyes still weren't focused in one thing in particular and he really, really hoped that hadn't just been wishful thinking.

Four and a half hours later and they were back in the bunker, Sam curled up on the couch "reading" a book while Dean hung out in the kitchen, making dinner. Now that he'd discovered his brother actually liked his cooking, it'd become kind of a regular thing and at the moment he needed to feel like he was doing something right. With the door swung open, the place where Sam sat was rarely out of sight and he kept looking over, checking. The shaking that had started up again in the car had gone down enough that it was barely noticeable from this distance.

Honestly, he just wished Cas was back (thinking of him made him feel guilty all over again but it was somewhat overlapped by worry at the moment). And not necessary to make Sammy all normal and everything again and _definitely _not to do that insanity transfer. All he needed was for someone else who _wasn't _screwed in the head to help him keep an eye on his brother. Even though they were back in their...whatever, it wasn't like he could keep a constant enough watch. It had taken a while, but he coaxed a confession out of Sam about how the scar wasn't working anymore and until the medication had actually kicked in, he'd used somewhat more drastic methods to keep the flashbacks at bay.

The last thing they needed was for that to start up again.

When he was finished, he joined Sam on the couch, handing over the food. "Dinner," he said before handing over a water bottle and three tablets, "and meds."

"I remember to take them on my own," Sam answered, accepted them. The frown was halfhearted.

"It's already midnight," Dean pointed out. "You were supposed to take them an hour ago."

Since he wanted to make up the past few months, he might've gone a little overboard with the research. Truthfully, he didn't know much about medication, so he'd looked it up and gotten a hold of Sam's psychiatrist who'd been pretty surprised to hear from Dean, the guy he'd apparently thought wasn't coming back. Shocker.

"I did this for a year without you."

"Yeah, but that was before you got back into hunting."

Sam picked at his food but recent trauma wasn't enough to ruin Dean's appetite. He'd tell his brother it was okay if he wasn't up to it, but one of things he'd found out was that the meds couldn't be taken on an empty stomach and he'd barely eaten all day. The regular times thing was something else he found out, too, and technically sleeping was important but he didn't think that was happening any time soon. Ever since they were kids they hadn't slept well and the shit storm of the past seven years of their lives only made it worse. As long as he got two out of three, he figured that was good enough. Sam said, "I'm fine, Dean."

_Fine _for them meant everything possible was wrong, but right now wasn't the time to be a hypocrite. He was too tired, too distracted himself, and was stuck dealing with the image of Mom burning replaying over and over in his head. Hell and Purgatory and the only thing that stuck was a memory from twenty years ago. Tomorrow he'd start up asking why Sam kept looking left and up again, but for now he let it be. Just eat, he told himself. Everything is so fucked up that it can wait for another twelve hours.

After a while, they get to talking about it was about stupid stuff like whether or not they should repaint that one wall in the kitchen that had water stains and whether or not familiar-to-witch sex actually _did _count as bestiality. Eventually Dean ended up getting too tired despite not wanting to sleep and dragged Sam off to their new, awesome memory foam mattress. Life might be shit and they might be idiots and insane, but it could be worse.

They were Sam'n'Dean, and that was all that mattered.

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Oh god, the end is so sappy. This is what happens when I come back from depressing college classes. Review, please!


End file.
